HERE COME THE DODGERS

Getting hotter: The Dodgers got off to a slow start, going 9-13 in April. But L.A. has won four straight — including a three-game sweep of the Diamondbacks — and seven of its past 10 to reach .500 at 17-17 and is now in third place, five games behind the Padres.

Triple crown? Outfielder Andre Ethier leads the National League in average (.385), home runs (11) and RBI (37). Ethier also leads the major leagues in OPS (slugging percentage plus on-base percentage) at 1.182.

Overall: The Dodgers are tied with the Minnesota Twins as No. 1 in the majors in batting (.277) and are No. 4 in scoring. But pitching has been shaky, with L.A. ranked 23rd in the majors in team ERA (4.68). The Padres are No. 1 in team ERA at 2.69.

SAN FRANCISCO  This time, even just five days later, there was no question. No doubt.

No brainer.

The only power of persuasion that Mat Latos needed for permission to finish his own shutout — a 1-0, one-hit, complete-game win that also completed the Padres’ second three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants this season — was the sound of his fastball arriving in the catcher’s mitt of Nick Hundley in the eighth inning.

“I thought his stuff was the best in the eighth,” Hundley said. “He was going well, throwing the ball good, but in the eighth inning he turned it up a notch. I noticed it catching, thinking like, ‘Wow. Here we go.’ ”

Between innings, Hundley asked manager Bud Black the question on everybody’s mind in the visiting dugout at AT&T Park, that being whether Latos would be going back out for the ninth with 98 pitches under his belt. His last start ended prematurely with the executive decision to have Latos, who’d thrown 107 pitches, sit out the last inning of his shutout at Houston.

“Bud just came over today and smiled at me,” Latos said. “He just cracked that smile.”

Green light.

“All along,” said Black, “I just felt like this was his game.”

Having already retired 52 of the last 55 batters he’d faced, having already thrown 17 straight scoreless innings, having not allowed but one semi-freaky hit to the Giants after five perfect innings, having made Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval look almost clueless in two flailing strikeouts, Latos went back out and polished his gem. A leaping grab of Matt Downs’ screaming liner by Chase Headley at third was followed by the strikeout of pinch-hitter Bengie Molina and fly-out to right by Aaron Rowand.

How sharp, how dominant, was Latos? The game — played before a sun-splashed crowd of 32,861 in a ballpark that’s grown painfully weary of a Padres club that’s 6-0 against San Francisco and 3 1/2 games ahead of the second-place Giants in the NL West — took 2 hours and 6 minutes from first pitch to last.

It was yet another flirtation for a franchise that has yet to have a no-hitter recorded. It marked the 24th time Padres pitching has given up just one hit in a game, and it was the Padres’ first complete-game one-hitter since Kevin Brown vs. Milwaukee on Aug. 16, 1998. The last complete-game shutout by a Padres pitcher was by Kevin Correia on Sept. 25 vs. the Diamondbacks.

“Everything was working,” said Latos, who recorded the first one-hitter by a visiting pitcher at AT&T Park, which opened in 2000. “First-pitch fastballs for strike one. The slider was working. The defense was working.”

Latos indeed was the beneficiary of impressive defensive plays by Headley, Adrian Gonzalez at first and Scott Hairston in center.

“I swear to God, those guys were in the right position every time,” said Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff. “It’s like they knew what was coming.”

The ball that cost Latos the perfect game actually first struck the pitcher.

Through five innings Latos had thrown 55 pitches, 35 of them strikes, and retired 20 straight batters dating back to that previous start in Houston. With a 2-2 count, Giants catcher Eli Whiteside hit a grounder up the middle that caught Latos with his back to the plate, caroming off the pitcher’s glove and wrist for an apparent sure hit. Headley scooped it up and got off a throw that nearly got Whiteside.

“I should’ve knocked it down,” Latos said. “The ball was in front of me. Whiteside’s a catcher, so probably not that good a runner. If I knock the ball down, I’ve got a chance to throw him out.”

That he finished with a one-hit win had to also be a bit of a grate on counterpart Jonathan Sanchez, who last year no-hit the Padres in the same ballpark. Earlier this season, Sanchez also had become the first Giants pitcher in 52 years to lose a one-hitter, and it happened at Petco Park on April 20.

Moreover, it was Latos who provided the game’s only run off Sanchez. An even-. 300 hitter coming in, Latos pushed a looper into right field that sent home rookie Lance Zawadzki, who reached on a two-out double and scored when right fielder Nate Schierholtz’s throw to the plate sailed over Whiteside.

The only other batter to reach base on Latos was Downs on a fielder’s choice that got Whiteside at second.

“Late in the game, I felt like I had a lot of adrenaline pumping through my body,” said Latos, who improved his record to 3-3 and lowered his ERA to 3.32. “It was pumping just as hard as the first inning.”